Some Deadly Serious Suggestions For The Secretary Of State
Having seen a fair few education ministers come and go in his time, Jon Berry has two main requests for the recently arrived Justine Greening…
- by Jon Berry
Dear Justine,
You’re the 18th Secretary of State for Education on my watch, and I’ve written this sort of letter to your predecessors on many occasions. I usually use a slightly sardonic tone. I don’t think we’re living in those sorts of times – so this is deadly serious.
I’m pleased to see that you were state-educated in a comprehensive school, and I genuinely hope that this will help to inform your decision-making. Like many in education, I’m sick of hearing an undertone of sneering and snobbery when people talk about comprehensive schools. I taught in them over four decades and I know how, at their best, they enhance people’s knowledge and understanding and give them chances in life.
There was also a time when they were great fun, too – and they still can be, when left to their own devices. This is where you can help.
Power and strength
I recently heard an experienced teacher tell a woeful tale. For years she had gladly given time and energy to produce the school play. Having directed dozens of such events myself, I instantly knew what she was talking about. Like her, as productions got nearer I genuinely felt as though I was living at school. None of this mattered. The school play is an opportunity for people of all talents and abilities – and sometimes for those with neither – to be part of something wonderful.
Tearfully, she told of how the pressures of chasing test results, organising coaching sessions for exams in the holidays and the constant, unforgiving chase for data and ‘proof’ of learning meant that the play had to go. That can’t be right.
We constantly hear about needing to produce rounded, flexible, accomplished individuals. I’m afraid we’re not going to do that while schools devote all their time and energy to high-stakes testing, exhausting teachers in the process.
I hope you had the chance to test your nerve and resolve at school by stepping out on to that darkened stage or whatever else it may have been. I hope you learned about the power and strength that comes from being part of a supportive, collective exercise. Maybe it was on an outward-bound exhibition or playing for a team against feared opponents and winning.
Whatever it was, it would have required a teacher who was happy – I choose the word carefully – to give time and effort to make it happen.
So that’s my first request – work with the profession to take the pressure off and give teachers and young people the time and space to really enjoy school. My second is more far-reaching.
Disadvantage and inequality
I often say to teachers that to understand what is happening in schools, they need to look at the wider political world. Whatever we think of it, successive governments have committed to privatisation, the shrinking of the state’s role in the provision of public service and successive cuts in welfare payments.
This has an impact on how schools are organised and, crucially, on the lives lead by many young people. The stubborn link between poverty and educational achievement remains as firmly intact as it has done for the past 50 years. So my plea to you as you take your seat at cabinet meetings is to work with your colleagues to address disadvantage and inequality, and to see this as part of your brief for education.
Given the track record of your 17 predecessors, I realise that this might be the triumph of hope over experience. But world events of the past few weeks have taught us that we ignore inequality and alienation at our peril. You might have a part to play in putting that right.
Jon Berry’s book, Teachers Undefeated available now via Amazon. To order multiple copies, contact the author at j.berry@herts.ac.uk
Main image courtesy of Simon Davis/DFID
